Grace Under Pressure
by Saran VD
Summary: A oneshot of our favorite xenobiologist, Dr. Grace Augustine, from her arrival at Pandora to her death, told in flashbacks. Non-flashback action is post-Hometree destruction. Reviews are welcome!


**A/N: So, I saw the movie for the second time on Thursday, and it made me realize just how much I love Grace Augustine. So here's a oneshot in her honor. Set after Hometree is destroyed, starting with the abrupt end of her last link. Any lines from the movie are based on my memory/the 2007 version of the script.**

**Also, so no one gets confused: time is in Earth time for years (so that the dates work), but Pandoran time for everything else. If the story is written in first person, it takes place in what is considered the present in this fic (post-Hometree-destruction). Anything in third person is a flashback.**

**Yeah, it's long, and it could've been a multi-chap, but that would've broken the flow. So enjoy the very-long oneshot of our favorite xenobiologist. Glossary of Na'vi is located at the end of the fic.  
**

**THIMBLES! And on with the fic…**

**Saran VD**

Grace Under Pressure

My human eyes snap open, and I try to keep them from tearing up, for my mind is still with what I have just witnessed. Several RDA thugs throw themselves upon me. I have one on each arm, holding me firmly in place. My struggles are futile, but they have no grip upon my voice.

"You murderer!" I scream at Quaritch as he orders another one of his grunts to get Jake. They disconnect the link and simply throw him over their shoulder.

I make eye contact with him, trying to reassure him, even as I wonder how the hell we'll ever get out of this mess. Norm is already handcuffed to a rail, and he joins me in shouting obscenities at the soldiers.

It does no good, of course. My blood is boiling, and my vision is reddened by the destruction that I have just seen. Crying, screaming Na'vi families, many of them now missing members. Children with severe burns. Elders with slashes caused by pieces of severed wood. And I know that still more will die.

"Murderer!" I scream again, fighting against them as best as I can. I find it hard to believe that, as a graduate student, I had actually thought that working for these people was a good idea.

* * *

It wasn't at all unusual for Grace to stop by her professor's office to chat for a bit. In fact, Dr. Andrews encouraged it. It gave them a chance to practice what they were learning in class.

"_Oel ngati kameie__, _Professor," said Grace with her usual smile. Dr. Andrews taught her favorite classes, which all related to Na'vi culture and language (or the little that the humans in the year 2131 knew of it).

Dr. Andrews smiled at Grace. "_Ngati kameie_, Miss Augustine. What brings you here? I know that you don't need any practice with your Na'vi."

Grace let out a snort of laughter. He was right; she'd been fascinated by the inhabitants of Pandora ever since she had first learned about them in the fifth grade, and she'd taken every class that her university (which was by far a leader in Pandoran studies) offered, even if they didn't directly relate to science in any way. No one could major in Pandoran studies just yet, but if they could, Grace would've earned her bachelor's degree twice before she'd earned the degree in what she'd really come to study: botany. This was her last semester before she earned her PhD, and she was making the most of her last months with Dr. Andrews.

"I suppose not," she said, still in Na'vi. "But I like visiting with you. You're one of the only people-" She stopped mid-sentence, unwilling to admit to the truth: that she was far more interested in plants and aliens than she was in other people.

Dr. Andrews got the idea anyway. "Well, that's fine. I had something to tell you, Miss Augustine. Take a seat."

Grace sat.

"Now," said Dr. Andrews, pulling up an email on his computer screen, "a little birdie tells me you want to be a botanist."

She nodded eagerly.

"How exactly do you plan on doing that here?" he asked, switching back to English.

Grace's smile faltered a bit.

"We've only got crops in greenhouses here anymore."

Grace sighed in defeat.

"But," Dr. Andrews looked at the email on his screen, "I've received an email from the RDA."

That caught her attention immediately. The RDA. Alpha Centauri. _Pandora_. Grace silently crossed her fingers under the table.

"They're looking for a biologist. They need one by this summer. Knowledge of the natives is a plus." His focus turned back to Grace, who was beginning to look like her birthday had just come early. "You're the top of your class, am I correct, Miss Augustine?"

Grace smiled and nodded.

Dr. Andrews chuckled a bit at the sight of the normally-subdued Grace now looking like she had a strong urge to dance a jig. "I'll send them a reply letting them know that we have a candidate."

Grace leapt out of her chair, ran around the desk, and threw her arms around his neck in a hug. Uncharacteristic of her? Maybe so, but she really didn't care. For years, she'd seen Pandora as something unreachable, but now, thanks to Dr. Andrews, it was in her grasp. "_Irayo_, _Karyu, irayo_!"

Dr. Andrews laughed and returned the hug. "Just don't let me down, okay?"

And Grace didn't let him down, not by a long shot. She was interviewed for the position a week later, and- impressed by her dedication to science and knowledge of Pandora- they gave her the job on the spot, taking her DNA and beginning work on making her avatar. The RDA told her that she would be one of the first people to use the avatars, which had only recently been perfected, and that she was responsible for cataloging any plants and animals that she came across. As soon as she graduated, Grace was aboard the ISV Venture Star to Pandora. In cryo, the six years flew by, and while her body felt miserable in the end, Grace was too thrilled to let it negatively affect her in any way.

A week after arriving at the (small, underfunded) lab at Hell's Gate, Grace was allowed to link up with her avatar for the first time.

After various lab techs made sure that her avatar was functioning properly, they allowed her to go. Grace rose to leave when she caught sight of her reflection in a window, and she froze in astonishment.

She looked almost exactly like every picture of a Na'vi that she had ever seen. Her hair was sleek and dark, reaching down to a couple inches above her elbow. She had the cat-like ears and nose (though, she noticed, they were a bit too human to be convincing) as well as, of course, the tufted tail. But what she found most interesting was the long braid that hung from her scalp, longer than the rest of her hair. Dr. Andrews had mentioned this in class several times, saying that it was a feature that all of the Na'vi had. He called it their "queue" and said that no one was quite sure what its purpose was.

Face set in determination, Grace dressed quickly and simply in a tank top and shorts, grabbed her pack (which contained her journal and a pen) and set off for the forests of Pandora.

She quickly was forced to remove the notebook from her pack, for she was surrounded by sights and sounds that she'd never even begun to imagine. She took note of plants that she compared to the now-extinct venus flytrap, for they, too, ate the small insects that fluttered about the moon's forests. There were ferns, there were trees (oh, the trees! The trees would take large amounts of time in and of themselves), there were grasses and flowers. She was in the middle of writing about a particularly interesting moss that grew on the side of a tree when she heard a rustling behind her, followed by a nervous giggle.

Grace whipped her head around, and her eyebrows rose when she saw a flash of blue in a bush. Cautiously, she walked over and parted the brambles to find a small child, no more than four years old, hiding with a mischievous grin on her face.

"_Oel ngati kameie_," Grace said slowly and carefully.

The child smiled and clapped her hands in delight. The stranger could talk! "_Ngati kameie_," she replied. Her voice was high-pitched and sing-song, and her golden eyes were fixed upon Grace in a most interesting way. Grace was certain that she was being studied by the child in the same way that she herself had just been studying the moss. Still speaking in Na'vi, she asked, "What were you doing?"

Grace was taken aback for a moment. "Me? Oh, just taking notes."

"You're a _tawtute_, aren't you?" The little girl's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Was it really that obvious? Grace had thought that the RDA had done one hell of a job with the whole avatar thing, but maybe not. "Yes," she admitted. "I am."

The child let out a snort of distaste. "Well, then, why do you care about us? Why don't you go back to cutting down trees or whatever you people are doing?"

"I love trees! I would never…"

But the little girl didn't let Grace finish. She leapt out of her hiding place and flung her arms about Grace's waist in the biggest bear hug that the scientist had ever received.

"I like you, then," the girl said firmly. "What's your name?"

"Dr. Grace Augustine," Grace replied proudly, trying not to let the child notice her discomfort (the little girl was awfully strong for her size).

"Dawktor Graceaugustine," the little girl said, tripping over the unfamiliar sounds.

Close enough, Grace decided. "And what's yours, _'evi_?"

The little girl looked up, and two pairs of golden eyes met. "Sylwanin A'itey."

* * *

Holding cells are all the same nowadays, whether they are meant for mass murderers, petty thieves, or a threesome of scientists attempting to keep the peace. A simple glass box, very minimalist.

Before now, I had thought that these holding cells were more humane than those of the past, which had menacing bars of steel. Now, my opinion has changed. I feel as if I'm stuck in a petri dish. I have more empathy than I thought possible for every little creature that has ended up in my samples.

Jake wheels back and forth down the length of the cell, reminding me of a caged animal.

"Jesus, marine, you think that's going to help? Are you trying to wear a hole in the floor?"

Across from me, Norm smiles at my comment, but the response is half-assed. We're both just as worried as Jake is, but neither of us is going to admit it.

Obediently, Jake stops directly in front of the door and slouches in defeat.

I know what he's feeling, and I have a strong urge to reach out and soothe him. I once stood as almost a member of their clan, and I, too, lost favor with them. You can't, I've learned, become emotionally attached, I want to tell him. You're here for the science. Never forget that.

It's not a lesson you want to learn the hard way.

* * *

"So why are you here?" Sylwanin asked Grace. They were now seated on the forest floor. Grace was noting her observations in a notebook while Sylwanin braided her hair. "Why did the Sky People send a tree-lover out here?"

"I'm a scientist," she explained. "I'm here to learn."

"Learn what?" Sylwanin finished the final braid, removing a bead from her own hair to keep it in place.

"Well, they want me to learn about the trees and the plants and the animals… and you." Grace said, grinning at the girl.

"Me?" asked Sylwanin. "Why?"

"Well, we…" Grace couldn't honestly say why, so she just gave her own personal reasons. "You fascinate us. We're curious."

Sylwanin looked carefully at Grace before grabbing her hand. "Come on, then! Let me show you." She pulled Grace to her feet and began leading her around the rainforest, pointing out the different trees and plants and giving her name for them.

Grace wanted badly to take notes, but the little four-fingered hand was insistent in the way that it grabbed her five-fingered one (another discrepancy between the avatars and the Na'vi, she noted). So she just listened carefully and took mental notes.

"So," asked Grace as Sylwanin stopped to take a breath, "why are you out here? What's a little girl doing out here alone?"

"Oh. _Sa'nu_ had a baby last week. She needed some peace and quiet, so Kare took me out here so I would be 'out of the way.'" The little girl grinned in her tricky way. "But I snuck off. Kare is boring."

Grace was about to ask Sylwanin who Kare was, but the child froze at the sight of a seemingly unremarkable lizard and motioned for Grace to stay quiet. The creature was sleeping soundly, but Sylwanin was staring at it like it was a treasure. "Look!" she whispered, pointing at it.

"Look at what?" Grace asked. The lizard was interesting only in the fact that they didn't have them on Earth.

Sylwanin, however, remained fascinated by it. She let go of Grace's hand…

…And whacked the branch that the lizard was perched on. Instantly, the lizard exploded into a whirling fan of color and light, the magenta disk carrying it through the air. The day was sunny, but only a few rays managed to reach through the thick forest canopy, so the lizard's glow was still noticeable.

Sylwanin giggled and chased after it, hitting every object that the lizard tried to sit on. Grace followed its flight with her eyes, utterly enchanted by the spinning, floating reptile. When she had imagined Pandora, she had never dreamed of anything like this. She'd never imagined the sheer magic that could lurk under her nose, waiting to be discovered.

If Grace hadn't fallen in love with Pandora before, she certainly did then.

Sylwanin noticed the look on Grace's face and smiled. "You should see them at night time," she said, poking the lizard once more. She grabbed Grace's hand and pulled her after it, and they were both smiling and laughing as they chased after it.

They both stopped to catch their breath, their laughter ringing through the forest and bouncing off of trees.

The delight, however, was short-lived, for Grace heard a growling sound from somewhere in the plants behind them. She turned her head a fraction and saw what she could only describe as a panther-like creature, crouching in the bushes.

"I found another one!" called Sylwanin, running in the direction of the monster. Grace saw another one of the lizards perched in front of it.

"Sylwanin, no!" Grace shouted, and she scooped the child up and ran.

The panther-from-Hell made chase. Sylwanin screamed. Grace ran, dodging trees, trampling flowers, and not really caring where she was going. Her only thought was to get them away, far away, from the demon that was following them.

"_Palulukan! Palulukan!_" Sylwanin screamed.

It wasn't a word that Grace recognized, so she assumed it was the Na'vi's name for the panther-from-Hell.

"Dawktor Graceaugustine!" Sylwanin hollered, pointing ahead of them.

Grace skidded to a stop mere centimeters away from a deep gorge.

"Over there!" the girl said, pointing to a fallen tree that looked barely strong enough to hold them.

Grace steeled herself (she'd never been good with heights) and crossed it as quickly as she trusted herself to. They had just made it across when the _palulukan_ stepped onto it.

It was the panther's weight that did it. The dead tree fell into the gorge, but the _palulukan_ managed to scramble back onto solid ground. It let out an angry roar and paced back and forth down the length of the canyon.

Grace set Sylwanin down and leaned against a tree, attempting to catch her breath. Sylwanin, meanwhile, threw herself around Grace's legs in a tight hug again. "You saved me," she said, nuzzling her face into Grace's knees.

Tired and needing to be able to stand surely, Grace managed to shake Sylwanin off. The girl fell to the forest floor and looked up at Grace with dejected eyes.

At that very instant, another Na'vi- this one an adult- ran out from a set of bushes. Judging by the way he ran, he'd been running for quite some time. Most likely as a response to Sylwanin's screams.

He stood with his bow drawn, aiming for Grace's heart. The woman stared, stunned, as the Na'vi pulled the arrow taught. "You have got to be kidding me," she muttered in English.

"Kare, _kehe_!" Sylwanin shrieked, rising to her feet and throwing the weight of her body against his leg.

"What has this alien done to you, little one?" the Na'vi, who Grace assumed was Kare.

"Nothing. There was a _palulukan_, and she saved me." Sylwanin turned to face Grace with nothing short of admiration in her eyes.

"I mean no harm," Grace said softly, sinking to her knees and raising her hands in surrender.

Kare relaxed the bow a bit. "Up, _faketuan_," he spat, keeping his bow strung and the arrow aimed at Grace.

Obediently, Grace rose to her feet.

He put his bow and arrow away and drew his dagger, which he held against her queue.

Sylwanin inhaled sharply, as if scared for Grace's safety.

"We'll let the _tsahik_ decide what to do," he said.

Dejected, Sylwanin followed behind the other two.

Grace's eyes darted about as she tried to take in everything that she saw. The trees, while not exactly thinning, seemed to all be leading towards something. It wasn't long before Grace saw exactly what.

A tree. Not just any tree. A large, looming tree that dominated the area. Her eyes were wide with astonishment as she was ushered _into the tree_, which, from the inside, was more reminiscent of a small city than a large tree. "I have got to take some samples," she muttered in English.

"_Fnu_!" Kare barked at her, pressing the blade closer to her queue.

Grace inhaled sharply through her teeth. Much to her astonishment, the knife's pressure on the braid actually _hurt_. Even through the pain of it, she couldn't stop herself from wondering why. Hair wasn't supposed to have nerve endings. _Unless it wasn't really hair at all._

Kare shoved Grace to her knees. "_Olo'eyktan_," he said, literally stepping over her to walk up to a particularly regal-looking Omaticaya.

Sylwanin took this opportunity to rush over to Grace's side and make sure she was okay. Between the girl's soft, doting assurances, Grace could hear nothing of Kare's conversation with the clan leader. All thoughts of science had drained from her head; she was simply hoping to make it out of this alive.

Suddenly, for no particular reason, Sylwanin quieted. Her eyes were fixed upon a single, white, jellyfish-like object that floated in the air towards Grace.

The scientist reached her hand out, and the thing hovered above her palm for several seconds before moving onward.

"Seeds of the Great Tree," the little girl said, awe coloring her voice. She ran over to Kare and the _olo'eyktan_. "_Sempu_!" she called. "_Sempu_!"

Grace stared after the child. _Daddy_? Sylwanin was the clan leader's daughter? No wonder everyone seemed so agitated.

"Yes, _'ite_?" asked the _olo'eyktan_ in a tone that Grace had heard out of her own father's mouth when she was young.

"Don't hurt the _tawtute_. Eywa doesn't want you to. There was an _atokirina_. It chose her." As Sylwanin spoke, she poked her father's leg, emphasizing the more important words with a particularly rough jab.

The _olo'eyktan_'s expression passed from puzzlement to surprise, and he called, "Come forward, _tawtute_."

Grace's pride took over, and she stood and walked boldly to stand before him. "_Oel ngati kameie_, sir."

His eyes widened a fraction. "So you can speak," he said. "We have met many Sky-People, many Dreamwalkers, but none have been able to speak."

"I speak as well as I was taught to," she replied, keeping her eyes focused on his four-toed feet. "But there is still much to learn."

"I was told you saved my daughter from a _palulukan_. Is this true?"

Grace nodded.

"And now an _atokirina_," the leader murmured to himself.

Grace remained silent.

At that moment, there was movement above them, and another Na'vi, this one female and clutching something small in her arms, descended the double helix that went up the height of the tree.

"Let me examine the newcomer."

Everyone, Sylwanin's father included, fell silent at the command.

"That's _Sa'nu_. She's _tsahik_," Sylwanin whispered. "The baby is Neytiri, my little sister."

As she passed the child, the _tsahik_ gently ran one hand through Sylwanin's braids.

"What do they call you?" asked the _tsahik_ as she stood before Grace. The sleeping baby in her arms stirred but didn't wake up

"Dr. Grace Augustine," said Grace in the same dignified tone she had used to introduce herself to Sylwanin earlier.

"Dawktor Graceaugustine," repeated the matriarch, mispronouncing it the same way that her daughter did. "Why do you come here?"

"To learn," she replied.

The Na'vi's eyes narrowed in thought. She removed a thorn from a necklace that she wore and stuck its sharp tip into the skin that the tank top left bare. Three drops of blood, plus a bit left on the thorn. Thoughtfully, she licked the blood off of the thorn. "We will tolerate your presence. Nothing more. No interfering. Stick to the plants you like so well." With that, she turned away, and Grace took that to mean that her audience was over.

"_Irayo_," she said softly, but the _tsahik_ was already halfway up the double helix.

Silent and sullen, Grace turned to leave, but she was stopped abruptly by Sylwanin pulling at her shorts. "I'll meet you again tomorrow, same place."

Grace exhaled a small laugh and nodded her agreement as she headed back to base.

When she awoke in her human body, she could hardly believe what had just happened. First thing, she rushed to find the head of the program, Dr. Harper. She told him everything, starting with discovering Sylwanin.

"Do a video log now, while it's all fresh," he ordered her.

She did so, obediently; the thing went on for half an hour. Over dinner, Dr. Harper gave the names of those who were "key players" (as he put it) among the Omaticaya. The _olo'eyktan_ was named Eytukan; the _tsahik_ was Mo'at. Sylwanin would be the next _tsahik_. Kare's son, Tsu'tey, who was a year younger than Sylwanin, was promised to the little girl, and he would be the next _olo'eyktan_. It was a lot for Grace to remember, but remember it she did.

The next day's link was much less eventful, but also more unusual. Sylwanin had dragged a reluctant Tsu'tey along for the ride. The boy sulked away from the others as Sylwanin pointed things out to Grace, giving her names for them. Grace, in the meantime, wrote her own names for the creatures: the _palulukan_ became the Thanator; the glowing, flying reptile that had so entertained the two girls the day before was christened the fan lizard; the _atokirina_ became, simply, a woodsprite…

And so the ritual continued, for days into weeks into years. As the time went on, more and more of the Omaticaya children came with Sylwanin. Even Neytiri came as soon as Mo'at trusted that she was old enough to face the jungle with no one but a _uniltìranyu_ to keep watch. And Grace, with Sylwanin's help, managed to do the impossible: document all of Pandora's species.

Dr. Harper, upon hearing that Grace had accomplished this, insisted that she send it off for publication. Before sending her field notes back on the Venture Star, she added a dedication: _Omaticaya ayeveng, oeyä aykaryu nawm, irayo_.

Grace had no objection to parting with five long years of work, for she had gained far more than what those pages could've contained. She learned how to blend in with the Na'vi, how to act like one of them. She had learned to ride a _pa'li_, a Direhorse. Perhaps most significantly, their belief in Eywa seemed to be contagious, for Grace now found herself genuinely joining in with the Omaticaya's prayers.

As Grace was learning about the Na'vi, they were learning about her in return.

"Teach us how to talk like you," Sylwanin, who was six at the time, ordered Grace one day. The girl had overheard Grace talking to herself aloud in English plenty of times over the years.

"Me? I'm no teacher. I'm not a _karyu_. Not like you are."

Sylwanin rolled her eyes. "I think you are. _Rutxe_?"

Sighing, Grace gestured for Sylwanin (and the ten other children that had followed her that day) to sit, and she began.

She started with easy words that she could point or act out: sit, stand, walk, run, tree, leaf. Then, gradually, things like I, you, we, he, she. Only a few weeks after her first lesson, and parents were willingly bringing their children to her, some of them staying to learn English themselves. Mo'at and Eytukan in particular made sure to stay and learn all they could whenever Neytiri and Sylwanin came.

A month into her lessons, Grace confronted Dr. Harper with what she thought was an absurd idea.

"What if we made them a school?"

Dr. Harper looked up from whatever papers he was reading to stare at her. "What?"

"They want to learn. What if we started a school?"

Dr. Harper considered this for a couple of seconds. "You want to start a school? Fine. Go ahead."

Grace blinked rapidly and stared at him, unable to believe her own ears. "Th-thank you," she sputtered before heading to bed.

And start the school she did. Within six months, she had made a small structure out of fallen twigs and branches. Inside, there was nothing but several tables and chairs for her students.

And, oh, the students! Omaticaya, young and old, came to the little shack to learn from Grace. She taught them as best as she could. For years and years, she taught them; their thirst for the knowledge was never quenched. And Grace never tired of them, either.

After literally seven years of trying, she persuaded the RDA to allow her a link in the Hallelujah Mountains, so that she could be closer to things (and further from the distraction that Hell's Gate was becoming). A miniature lab was flown out hooked to the bottom of a Samson which held Grace and was piloted by a young Marine pilot, Trudy Chacon. Finally, Grace didn't have to worry about the security goons, or worse, Parker Selfridge, breathing down her neck as she planned lessons.

She had many of the same students over the years: Ninat, a shy little girl with a voice like Grace had never heard before; Beyral, an expert hunter (she'd earned her _ikran_ at the same time as Sylwanin, despite the fact that she was a year younger than Neytiri). Even Tsu'tey and Kare made time to come. Of course, Grace could always count on the presence of Sylwanin and Neytiri, who brought the lesson home to their parents every night. And all of them, every last one of the children, called her _Sa'atenuk_. Mother.

* * *

"Personally, I think steak's too good for these traitors."

Trudy's voice snaps me out of my thoughts, which (I now realize), have passed quite a bit of time. I look up and see her with a cart, our guard bending over to look inside. As I watch, she points her gun at the man's head.

"Yeah, you know what that is." She forces him down and knocks him out with a swift movement of the weapon. "Max!" she calls.

And Max, ever-dependable Max, rushes into the room and swipes his card to set us free.

I want to jump on him and thank him, but there is no time. I know, perhaps better than anyone, that the RDA is quick to act if things don't go quite according to their plan. I run out the door with the others, Trudy leading the way to her Samson with Norm close behind. I see, out of the corner of my eye, Jake stopping to talk to Max, but I don't wait around to hear what he's saying. I take a seat on the far edge of the Samson (the better to play lookout) and wait for the safety of flight.

As I anticipated, I hear a commotion from inside the building which can only mean that the RDA has discovered that we're fleeing.

I silently pray that things don't turn out so badly this time.

* * *

The RDA was getting worse. Their mine was going dry, and they needed to expand it. So, they did what they did best: they killed trees. Just bulldozed them down without a care for what happened afterwards.

Ten years after starting the school, Grace was in the middle of teaching a lesson in writing using leaves as paper and burnt sticks as pens. Needless to say, it was not an easy task. On top of that, the Na'vi language was unwritten, which made the concept of writing even harder to explain.

When the Na'vi tell stories, they sing or dance them (as Ninat has reminded Grace numerous times). Writing is unnecessary. The art keeps perfect records.

Still, Grace thought it was necessary to teach them to write. Writing, she explained, could be useful. If you want to send someone a message but you don't have time to say- or sing- it, you can write it down and give it to them.

Neytiri then pointed out that someone could just fly on their _ikran_ and give the message. "_Ikran_ fly quickly," she pointed out, puffing up her chest a little as she spoke (she'd just formed _tsahaylu_ with Seze not a week previously).

Grace sighed and rolled her eyes, laughing a bit at the thought. "Well, we _tawtute_ like to write our stories down. If you want to learn our stories, you'll have to learn to read."

Their attentiveness increased tenfold.

"Now," said Grace, using the burnt end of a branch to trace a capital A on the wall. "This is-"

But before Grace could say what it was, she heard a commotion outside.

"_Sa'atenuk! Sa'atenuk!_"

It was Sylwanin's voice. Grace stopped mid-sentence, awestruck. Sylwanin had refused to come anywhere near the school for six months; the RDA humans were angering her too much, and she knew they were the ones paying for the school, which had seen much improvement since its early days. "Excuse me," she said, and she headed to the doorway, Neytiri at her heels.

"I've wrecked their machines, _Sa'atenuk!_ They can't hurt Eywa's forests any longer!" Sylwanin, as well as several other Na'vi around her age, was covered in warpaint. There was an expression of rabid joy upon her face.

"So why are you running to me?" Grace called back with a small laugh, but the answer came in the form of four RDA goons in AMP suits, along with several men on foot. All of them were armed.

Sylwanin had just reached the doorway when one of the men in the AMP suit took careful aim and let loose a round of bullets.

Red blood splattered upon the walls of the school, upon the steps, upon Neytiri's horrified face, as Sylwanin fell in a graceful arc, landing at Grace's feet. The bullets had made at least four holes, all through her ribcage.

Grace felt a lump in her throat, and Neytiri let out an ungodly wail of despair.

"Out the back door!" she told the remaining students, gesturing frantically with their hands.

They obeyed quickly, scurrying away like little mice as the sounds of the others' deaths reached their ears. By the time Grace turned around, Sylwanin's four companions had been shot as brutally as she had.

One of the soldiers in the AMP suits made eye contact with Grace as she stared in dumb-struck horror at the scene before her.

"Quaritch," Grace said, all of her grief and anger coating that one name.

Quaritch simply smiled at her. "Just remember who pays for your party," he said, and he fired off another round in her general direction before signaling that the SecFor retreat.

One of the bullets hit a branch, disturbing a fan lizard. A swirl of color and light, and the little reptile was airborn.

One of the bullets hit Grace in the side. A stab of pain, and she fell to the floor at Sylwanin's side. Her right hand tried to stop the blood's flow as she felt herself slipping out of her avatar body.

* * *

"Crap." I look at my hand and experience a weird sense of déjà vu as waves of agony make their way through my body. Perhaps waves aren't a strong enough word. Compared to the shot I sustained as an avatar, these aren't waves, but tsunamis.

The rejoicing stops. I can see what they had all been thinking: _Quaritch shot at us, and we still got away! Victory is ours!_

But victory can never be ours. Not as long as the RDA has better weapons and steeper funds. I'm living proof of that.

Jake's eyes meet mine in an expression of shocked horror, as if he thought I was invincible until now.

"This is going to ruin my whole day," I say to him.

"Grace was hit!" Cries for trauma kits and bandages ring through the cabin of the Samson. Trudy gives them all the locations of things, and Jake wheels over to me. "Keep the pressure on it, Grace," he says to me. As if I didn't know what to do if I was shot.

"Calm down, Marine," I manage to choke out without giving away how much pain I'm in. "It's not a big deal."

But I can't stay conscious, can't stay entirely there, no matter how hard I try. I'm only vaguely aware of where we are. At some point, I'm transferred from the Samson to the portable link from the Hallelujah Mountains. I end up laying on my uninjured side in one of the links.

Jake is inside with me, and Norm is using one of the link-ups to remain in his avatar, which I know is on the roof of the building. Jake carefully preps a syringe of morphine and wheels over to me with it.

I stare at it with trepidation. While I long for an end to the pain, I dread the blackness that I know the morphine will bring.

Apparently, I have no choice in the matter, for Jake simply sank it into my arm without consulting me.

"Ow," I say bitterly.

"You big baby," he replies in a futile attempt at playfulness.

The morphine does its job. I feel the pain ebbing already, but I'm also shifting in and out of consciousness. I only hear bits of Jake's conversation with Trudy as he says something about the vortex and the Tree of Souls.

And then everything goes black.

* * *

After Sylwanin's death, Grace didn't have the heart to return to the school. She knew how things would look to the Na'vi: she was human, so their princess's blood was on her hands.

Grace returned back to her avatar the next day, but she walked back to the link in the mountains so that she could gather her necessary supplies. Back to sampling. Back to the plants.

Plants, Grace decided, were better than people. Plants couldn't betray you. Plants were predictable. Plant a seed, and the seed grows. Unless you do something wrong, it sprouts into a tree or flower that lives on.

More than anything, Grace lost her faith in Eywa. Any sort of mother-goddess wouldn't allow such atrocities, she was sure. Eywa shouldn't have let Sylwanin die. Eywa shouldn't have let the humans destroy the forest or mine the unobtanium that kept them here. Grace hadn't believed in a deity on Earth for the same reason: why would a god let Earth turn into the hell that it had become?

After a month of solitary confinement, Grace requested to be transferred back to Hell's Gate. She couldn't take the silence any longer.

Dr. Harper was relieved by her change of heart, for he was hoping to retire soon, and Grace was the only person he trusted to keep the avatar program going.

Grace took the position willingly, though a bit unenthusiastically. In an attempt to cheer herself up, she took up smoking (Dr. Harper's old vice), which didn't work as well as she had hoped, though it did calm her nerves quite a bit. She continued with her studies of Pandoran biology, exploring the relationships between the different aspects of the environment.

What she discovered astounded her. Electrical shocks, flowing between the roots of plants. Hundreds of millions of tiny little synapses, connecting all the plants with each other. Suddenly, Grace had something to be interested in again.

The current avatar team respected her, but they didn't really seem to care what she did. She had high hopes for the new recruits, who (according to Dr. Harper) were Norman Spellman and Thomas Sully. Norm, according to what she'd been told, was a brilliant anthropologist, though a bit absent-minded. Tom was a great biologist, and he had a heart bigger than they'd ever witnessed.

However, literally two weeks before the ISV brought her her new crew, she was given the news that she was sure was being deliberately withheld: Tom Sully had been killed, and they were sending his military-goon of a twin in his place.

Cue shattered hopes and dreams.

"Hey," Dr. Max Patel, the ever-hopeful neurologist, said, "if he even has half of the heart of his brother, he should be okay."

Grace just rolled her eyes.

After their disastrous first expedition, she gave the (incompetent, foolish) Jake a crash-course in everything that she'd learned in her twelve years among the Na'vi. It made her angry to have to trust _him_, of all people, to not do anything stupid, but she had other things to do. She and Norm resumed the research she had been doing, looking into the synapses of the plants.

They were working into the twilight one night, and Trudy was getting impatient. They were packed up and ready to go when Grace was- shockingly- distracted by a small lizard which sat on a branch.

"Norm," she said softly, beckoning to the other scientist. "Watch."

She reached out gently and brushed her hand against the fan lizard's scales. An explosion of color and light enraptured the pair of them for a few seconds until the lizard perched again.

"Was that a fan lizard?" asked Norm, looking astonished and delighted.

"Wonderful little creatures, aren't they?"

Norm nodded vigorously.

Grace didn't normally pick favorites on Pandora, but she had a soft spot for the little lizards. They seemed so insignificant, but look how they surprised you.

A month into his lessons from Neytiri, Jake told Grace something she had never expected to hear.

"Hey, you wanna come by Hometree for a bit tomorrow?"

There weren't strong enough words of agreement in the English language for Grace to use.

It was awkward at first, rejoining the Na'vi after so long. The older ones looked at her with a sort of scornful annoyance. The one exception was Neytiri, who greeted her with no more than a courteous nod and a "Dr. Augustine."

But the little ones, the ones who didn't remember the shooting, flocked her. "_Sa'atenuk!_"

That word again. Grace's heart grew three sizes as she bent down to their level, which wasn't as low as it used to be. She ran her fingers through their hair, one at a time, as she exclaimed, "Look how you've grown!"

* * *

"Look where we are, Grace."

I slowly pull out of the morphine-induced stupor and look up. I'm vaguely aware of Jake's avatar's strong hands holding me, carrying me like the most precious of loads. My main attention goes to a large tree with white vines hanging from its branches.

The Tree of Souls.

"I've got to take some samples," I murmur, forgetting my pain for a moment. But as Jake lowers me to the ground, it comes back in all its raging glory. At the same time, I realize that I'm no longer in my clothes; I've been wrapped in vines. _What the hell is that drat marine thinking_?

Mo'at starts a prayer, and my eyes slide closed again.

I feel the strangest sensation, as if I'm being sucked into a vacuum. I don't open my eyes, and yet I can see. I don't get up off the ground, and yet I'm standing in front of a wall of leaves. I part them, and a flurry of fan lizards takes to the skies.

I hear the laughter of children, see elders walking by. They give me smiles and polite nods as I inch forward.

And then, from the depths of this strange world, a cry. "_Sa'atenuk!_"

Sylwanin- gorgeous, living, breathing Sylwanin- runs towards me and throws herself at me in a bear hug which nearly knocks me down. "You're smaller," she notes, for she had to bend over to reach me.

I look down at myself and see that I'm still in my human form. "I'm not always a _uniltìrantokx_," I gently remind her.

She shrugs it off as if it's no big deal and grabs my hand, pulling me along. "Come on, _sa'atenuk_, I have a lot to teach you." She leads me to a clearing, which is occupied by a single, glowing being made almost entirely of light.

At that moment, I hear a new voice, an unfamiliar voice. It's neither high nor low in pitch, and it seems to be coming from everywhere at once. However, as I hear the voice, the glowing being moves in perfect coordination.

"Welcome home, Dr. Grace Augustine," says the voice, speaking in Na'vi and English at once.

Only then do I know who it is. My eyes- my real eyes- fly open, and I find myself staring at Jake's avatar face.

"I'm with her Jake," I tell him, a smile creeping across my lips. "She's real."

My eyes fall closed again, and Eywa beckons. I don't dare to disobey.

* * *

**A/N (again): Final flashback is my fleshed-out version of an event referenced in the 2007 edition of the script. The characters of Grace, Jake, Max, Norm, Quaritch, Neytiri, Mo'at, Eytukan, Seze, Tsu'tey, Selfridge, and Trudy are all © James Cameron. The names of Sylwanin, Ninat and Beyral are also © James Cameron, though any personality (other than "great hunter", "best singer," ect.) they have is my invention. All other characters are mine (unless somehow I forgot to give credit to a canon character. In that case, sorry James Cameron! I wasn't trying to steal! You can have your character back! Don't kill me!) Na'vi words courtesy of learnnavi dot com.**

**GLOSSARY:**

_**Oel ngati **_**kameie**_**:**_** I see you.**

_**Ngati **_**kameie**_**:**_** short form of "I see you", used as a response.**

_**Irayo:**_** Thank you.**

_**Karyu:**_** teacher**

_**Tawtute**_**: Sky-person, human**

'_**Evi:**_** Child**

_**Sa'nu:**_** Mommy**

_**Palulukan:**_** Thanator, literally "Dry Mouth Bringer of Fear"**

_**Kehe:**_** Stop**

**_Fnu: _Be quiet!**

**_'Ite:_ Daughter  
**

_**Faketuan:**_** alien**

_**Olo'eyktan:**_** Clan leader**

_**Tsahik:**_** Spiritual leader**

_**Atokirina:**_** seeds of the Tree of Souls**

_**Uniltìranyu:**_** Dreamwalker**

_**Omaticaya ayeveng, oeyä aykaryu nawm, irayo:**_** Children of the Blue Flute Clan, my great teachers, thank you.**

_**Pa'li:**_** Direhorse**

_**Rutxe:**_** Please**

_**Sa'atenuk:**_** Mother**

_**Uniltìrantokx:**_** Avatar body (as in, the blue body that isn't alive unless the person is linked to it)**


End file.
